I like how people confuse "underperformed" with "failure." Just because a game (that sold 1.8 million copies in its first week) didn't perform as well as its predecessor doesn't mean the game is a flop. CoD:IW raked in tons and tons of money for Activision Blizzard. The problem is that the company was expecting even more money. It's like when you see a company post record profits but the stock price falls because the market was expecting higher numbers. Now somehow record profits = stock drop.
With any longstanding franchise like Call of Duty, there’s a balancing act we need to strike between staying true to the things that people love about the franchise and also the need to never become complacent and to keep pushing for innovations to keep the franchise fresh and vital. I would argue, over a period of many years now, we’ve managed that balance on Call of Duty better than just about any longstanding franchise in any medium. He added, “Last year I don’t think we got that balance right. Infinite Warfare had a ton of great gameplay innovations that many of our fans appreciated and loved, but it also had a setting that didn’t appeal to all of our fans.”
